


Smoke

by LCWells



Series: Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea [3]
Category: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 09:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11734410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LCWells/pseuds/LCWells
Summary: What would it be like to bury Chip Morton at Arlington National Cemetery?(This was written in 1996 and published in the Voyage fanzine, Beneath The Surface. It is set in Kathy Agel's universe. I was intrigued with the thought of writing about a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. At the time there wasn't much information on it so I did my best.)





	Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Before you ask about "major character death", read the story.

It was a perfect October day. The maple trees were curtains of red-gold leaves waving incandescently in a light breeze. A thunderstorm  
had wetted the gravel paths that wound through the cemetery. 

Lynn Morton wore a light jacket over her black dress as she and the children walked to the open grave, escorted by Admiral Nelson. The chairs before the grave were arrayed in rows of seven each and most of them were filled by crewmen from Seaview and researchers from the Institute, Lieutenant Commander "Doc" Jamieson, Chief Sharkey had done all the military end of the funeral arrangements, while Lynn' s brothers, Jack and Kevin Murtagh, had handled the funeral home end. Her parents sat beside Kate Morton Murtagh, Chip' s sister, who was married to Kevin.

Her seat was right in front with two children on each side. She sat down, seeing, out of the corner of her eye, her daughter Shawn take Michael's hand and sit down next to Admiral Nelson, while, on the other side, Andrea and Brian huddled close to each other. She put her arms out so that she could touch Andrea and Shawn, who sat the farthest away from her, and waited.

Lynn' s control began to shake when she saw her uncle, Monseignor Francis Xavier Murtagh, standing at the head of the grave, his book open. This was it.

It was so stupid, so criminally stupid. If Chip hadn't been riding in the helicopter with idiot, Lieutenant LaFond, he wouldn't have crashed into the damned James River.

Up the hill came the Navy Rifle Guard. They filed into position on the other side of the grave, The Color Guard was standing nearby, the Stars and Stripes, Navy and Nelson Institute's flags hanging at the correct angle. Cornmander Morton was having a full Navy funeral.

She began to shake and Nelson put his hand over hers where it rested on Andrea's shoulder. Their fingers interlaced, She heard a betraying sniff from one of the children and Lynn' s heart ached. They'd done so well at the funeral Mass and all the way out to the gravesite. If they started crying now, she wouldn't be able to keep her composure. Lord knew, she was close enough to the edge as it

It had been just a matter of some of the contractors in Norfolk. LaFond had been in charge of the procurement of parts for the upgrade of the Flying Sub. He'd muffed the job, and Chip, as Seaview' s Executive Officer, had suggested they visit the manufacturer to see what could be done about the extremely expensive disaster.

The sound of feet on gravel and the occasional grunt of men carrying something heavy came to her. The casket was carried by six men. Captain Crane and Commander Thomlinson, Lieutenant O'Brien, Captain Kyle of NIMR' s research ship _Venture_ , Kowalski and Riley, along with two others, her brothers, Kevin and Jack Murtagh in black suits, a stark contrast to the uniforms in the front .

A plain black coffin draped in an American flag. It was so neat and discreet that Lynn thought it might just be empty. Wasn't it? On such a beautiful day in such a beautiful place, they should be picnicking, not burying anyone. Oh, Chip. . .

The men lowered the coffin onto the rack and walked around to their seats. Kevin took the seat next to his wife, putting his arm around her and holding her tight, Jack sat beside Shawn at the opposite end from the Admiral. Crane and Tomlinson came to stand behind Lynn, a firm warm weight that she could rest against when her knees turned to water, as they had when she first saw the coffin.

Lynn' s eyes blurred as she saw Uncle Frannie, Father Murtagh, open his book and began to read. She raised her chin and stared out over the coffin, willing the ceremony to be over.

It seemed to go on forever and ever, the familiar words falling like stones on her ears. She looked around at all the grim faces, the closed faces of the seven-man rifle guard ready to fire the twenty-one gun salute in sequence of three. 

The head of the manufacturing firm had been the person who had tipped off the Admiral that the helicopter had gone down, The aghast man had watched it hit the water and called for all the rescue teams but the heavy Cobra had sunk in the strong current. The crews had been lucky to recover Chip' s body two days later; LaFond and the pilot had been lost for almost a week till their corpses washed ashore. All three men had had closed coffins.

Uncle Frannie finished and closed his book. Lynn didn't think she'd heard one word. Two of the Color Guards came forward and ceremonially folded the flag. One of them, she couldn't have said whom, came over and presented it to her. She would never forgive herself if she dropped it, she knew, but her hands were cold and shaky. She had to take her hands off the girls to accept the flag. she felt the linen and rough seams where the stars were hand-sewn on. From behind she felt Crane ' s hand come forward and steady her elbow, and the flag stopped quivering. She leaned back against him, glad of the warmth,

Crane and _Seaview_ were due in Norfolk that evening to pick up Chip. They had made record time docking when the news was broken to them.

The Admiral had called her into his office at the Institute as soon as he heard. Lynn knew this wasn't the first time Nelson had had to give this sort of news to next-of-kin; she knew he took it as hard as she did. But the moment she walked in and saw his face, she knew. And she had gone to pieces.

The Color Guard moved back into place. She felt Crane stir, and saw Nelson turn towards her. This was when she could walk forward, say her goodbyes, let the children say goodbye. She was frozen. The children didn't move. The moment passed. The Rifle Guard raised their weapons. Three rounds of blanks.

Bang! She jumped and flinched at the sound of the guns. Bang!

A twenty-one gun salute that reverberated among the quiet of the graveyard like Judgement Day. Smoke spread over the people awaiting the final moments. By the end, Lynn was visibly shaking, Crane holding her shoulders.

"It's over, Lynn, " he whispered softly. "Let's go. "

She shifted her shoulder, feeling the tears on her face, seeing splotches on the flag. "Yeah, let's go, , , "

Nelson held out his hand to Shawn who gravely took it. On the other end, Jack picked up Brian, who was looking puzzled as if he really didn't understand what was happening. Andrea clung to her mother's black dress. Michael stared straight ahead, a miniature of his father, with the same mien and bearing as the man who lay in the closed coffin. The group moved away down the hill to the gravel path and the waiting cars that would take them to the wake.

A gust of wind blew through the trees, sending a shower of dying leaves into the open grave and over the black coffin. The cemetery workers moved forward, crackling the red and gold under their feet into the black mud. They lowered the coffin into the grave and closed it up, It was over.

***

Lynn awoke in a sweat . The cliche was a cold sweat. This wasn't. 

The room was as hot as a furnace that had been left on too long. She wondered why the room was so hot. The windows were open and, even in California, in August, the temperature dropped at night. She threw off her sheet and got up to check on the kids, then remembered they and the dogs were at their Uncle ' s Jack' s house for a sleepover birthday.

Smoke. There was smoke in the house.

With a gasp of alarm, she raced out the door, The smell diminished as she reached the main floor.

But light was flickering outside, red and gold, just like the leaves in her dream. She threw open the front door, Outside, the fire was reaching out from the dry wood of the forest. It was fanned by a slight wind which sent sparks over the house. It was a creeping dragon of red and gold, capped with smoke that wafted over the house every time the breeze changed. Looking at her house, she realized that her curtains were flapping in the breeze.

A helicopter roared over the house, heading into the blaze. It would spread chemicals that would attempted to snuff the flames, but in the meantime, she knew that this was the genesis of her dream. The smoke in her dream had come from the blaze. The roof would be safe -- it was slate, and had been a large expense when they'd built the house, but worth it in an area where fire was a constant danger. But the land was in danger, and she had no doubt that her husband, and probably Lee as well, would have been wetting down the grounds nearest to the house to keep them from burning. Luckily, he was safely at sea at the moment on some kind of a special assignment . He might get blown up, but he wouldn't die in a fire.

Unlike herself, if she didn't get a move on. For a second, she debated the wisdom of going back inside for her clothing, then decided that the fire would hold off long enough to do it and grab her purse.

Discarded jeans from the night before, a tee shirt, were thrown on in haste, and she crammed her sockless feet into her battered sneakers, then grabbed her purse, and fled the house.

To find that the smoke had snuck around her, and was now sealing off the escape down the street. She was trapped in a pocket that was becoming unbreathable.

Something roared out of the smoke, and a helicopter dangled a rescue basket down. She heard over the speaker, "Get inside! Now! "

She grinned. "Lee Crane! When did they start to let you play with the Institute helos?" She clambered inside the basket, and, swinging dizzily, it rose and headed out of the smoke. Lynn shut her eyes and swallowed convulsively.

She was shaking when the helicopter hovered over the rescue crew, She hadn't been the only person trapped in the cul-de-sac from the crowd huddling under blankets , Other choppers were coming out of the smoke with other trapped people. Chip held onto the basket long enough for her to slide out into his arms, shivering,

"You 're alive! " she said almost accusingly.

He blinked. "That's my line. I thought I'd lost you, honey, We got back this afternoon, then heard about the fire. What's the matter? You look like a ghost. "

She hugged him. "Just a bad dream, Chip. Just a bad dream. "

 

(Much thanks to Kathy who let me play with her characters for a time. LCW, l996)  
l


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